Linux Mint: A Refreshing Taste of Linux

As I stated at the end of my Open Source article, I would start going thru various Linux distributions and reviewing them. Now, I'm not going to be saying that what I think is good is right for you, it might not be, but my experience might give you an idea if this is a distribution you want to try.

So without further ado, this is my first Linux review of one of the hot newcomers (fairly new anyway):Linux Mint

First I should give a bit of information. Linux Mint is a fairly new distro, only been around for a year or so. It is based off of the highly praised Ubuntu Linux which itself made waves a couple years ago for it's stability and ease of use. This means the Linux Mint has a wide base and can use any Ubuntu software servers.

I am fairly new to Linux Mint, having only had it installed for a couple days. However already I can see it far surpasses it's Ubuntu parent as far as presentation and graphical flair are concerned. Where as Ubuntu is predominantly brown and orange and in general doesn't look that great or feel that welcoming Linux Mint feels.. well.. minty fresh. Bright blues and greens are used along with sufficient dark backgrounds to help reduce eye strain and the package just feels more welcoming to me.

Once I got past the different look and color scheme I did notice that there were more changes in the distribution than just a simple color swap. Gone is having two bars on the desktop for programs and such to reside in. It feels much more like Windows in this sense, in fact to access settings and programs and such you click a button in the lower left corner. It might as well say 'start'. I always found the dual menu bar system to be a bit odd, I know Mac users use it and Linux has for years, but I grew up on windows and still use it more than any other system for work and gaming, so something as simple as a single taskbar is a welcome change.

The other major change between this and Ubuntu is many things for playing videos and such are included right at install. This even includes the Envy video card driver program. This program is great, it downloads and installs the drivers for your video card to work under Linux with full 3d. This is the point I shoukld mention however that some cards will not be recognized. I had one that was not recognized because it's a third party ATI card on a third party mother board... neither of those components play well with Linux and that was a bit of short sightedness when I built my computer.

However on my other PCs the system worked fine, played games fast, and booted up in under 10 seconds. You never hear that with Windows. The system automatically detected my network card, my video card, processor and such. It was also amazingly easy to install. Select a language, a keyboard layout, set up the drives how you need (I will be doing a guide on partitioning for Linux and XP soon), and finally installing. Reboot the system and you are done.

Now, if you are new to Linux you might ask how you tell the PC to boot Linux or to boot XP. When you install Linux it will install a program on your hard drive that will tell the computer where you operating systems are stored and what it needs to do to launch each one. It will then give you a choice of what to run.

I personally have used Linux more often for writing, surfing, and gaming more than XP since installing Linux Mint and I think that unless you are a power gamer with a need for the latest and greatest you will be perfectly happy with a OS like Linux Mint. It's sense of style and unique features makes it more than just a clone of Ubuntu but a full fledged system in it's own right and one that should be in the top 5 lists for a long time.